Pay up
Back in 2014, the Albuquerque police department shot and killed a 19-year-old woman named Mary Hawkes during a foot chase. Shannon Kennedy, an attorney representing the family in a wrongful death lawsuit, asked the police for documents related to the killing. When she discovered they withheld materials, she sued them, ultimately leading to District Judge Nancy Franchini's ruling that APD must pay damages and attorney's fees as well as produce the documents. The exact amount the police owe will be decided over the next month or so.
Whose streets? Our streets!
Tensions over who lays claim to roads surrounding San Ildefonso Pueblo have prompted US Rep. Ben Ray Luján to call for unity. The roads are on original Pueblo land that has since been seized and have now hosted several generations of non-Native families. The Bureau of Indian Affairs is supporting the Pueblo's claims, and if it ends up in federal court the Pueblo is likely to win. Santa Fe County maintains that the Pueblo has no claim to the road, and is withholding its funding share for a $231 million regional water system in protest.
Didn't get far
An incarcerated man who escaped from the Luna County Detention Center in Deming County on Monday was found 80 miles southeast, in El Paso, by Tuesday morning. Joshua Mirka had been arrested for breaking his probation and parole conditions after failing to register as a sex offender.
Oasis in the desert
Developers of the Santolina project, which will be home to around 90,000 people on a mesa 20 miles west of Albuquerque, were granted more time by the Bernalillo county commission to come up with a plan for water use. Opponents of the agreement argue that the county is letting the developer kick the can down the road and barrel forward without a proper agreement with the water utility in place.
King of the dinosaurs
Ever wonder what the inside of a T rex's skull looked like? Using state-of-the-art, high-resolution scanning, researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory and the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science got a deep look at the skull of a T rex relative that lived long ago in what is now northwestern New Mexico. The resolution was so detailed, researchers could trace nasal passages and nerve pathways. It's the clearest imaging ever done of a tyrannosaur skull.
Indian Market again
It's not just the Santa Fe Indian Market happening this weekend. There's also We are the Seeds at the Railyard, The Zuni Show at the Scottish Rite Temple and a pow-wow on Saturday evening at the Chavez Center. And the Indigenous Fine Art Market is indeed still alive, happening Friday and Saturday at the Inn and Spa at Loretto. The week has become a major networking event for Native organizations around the country, in addition to the largest magnet for tourism into Santa Fe.
Thanks for reading! The Word is calling the Adelante food pantry, which is empty just as school is starting, to see when's a good time to drop off some bags.
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